It took me a good half hour of hunting, but I finally dug up a cached version of the original entry. Here is the entirety of his craziness so that we can all have it for posterity. Here's the source, dunno if it'll last:
Tim Langdell (born ~1953 in Oxford, England) is a video game producer, game programmer and game designer as well as a published author and university professor. He was a participant in the early British computer and video game industry, founded the video game developer and publisher, EDGE Games (originally formed as Softek Software in July 1979), and co-founded the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.[1] Prior to entering the nascent game industry, Langdell had two quite different careers: first as an astrophysicist and then as a clinical psychologist where he used his training as a physical scientist to do some of the first computer-based research into Autism using eye tracking and face perception techniques.[2] Langdell has designed and produced over 180 games, written several books on games and virtual reality and is the Chair of the Department of Media at National University in Los Angeles.[3] as well as CEO of EDGE Games [4]
Contents
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1 1971-1990, The Early Years: Forming an Industry
2 1990 to present
3 Game credits
4 References
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1971-1990, The Early Years: Forming an Industry
In 1971 Langdell entered the University of Leicester to study Physics and Astronomy and in his first year there used the university's PDP-8 and PDP-11 computers to write his first computer game Mazenture featuring monsters and magical creatures such as those found in the Dungeon & Dragons style games which were to start in the mid-1970s.[citation needed] In 1979, Langdell acquired his first personal computers, a TRS 80 and an Apple II and immediately started programming games for both machines.[citation needed] His hobby soon turned into a business when in 1979 he formed Softek Software (later renamed "EDGE Games" and "The EDGE") and started selling his first games, first via mail order then later via the "mom and pop" computer stores which emerged in Britain in the early 1980s (such as Buffer Micro in Streatham). [5]
In 1981 Langdell started writing for the British home computer magazine Your Computer where he edited and wrote software and hardware reviews. [6] As part of his duties at Your Computer, Langdell edited the reader-submission section where readers of the magazine could submit original games they had written for such home computers as the Sinclair ZX81 and Sinclair Spectrum.[citation needed]
Langdell was impressed with the high quality of some of the submissions and in 1982 decided to quit his job as a Research Psychologist at Britain's Open University and focus full time on building Softek as a game publisher and identified emerging new talents, such as Andrew Glaister (who was only 15 at the time) and Graeme Devine (who was just 17).[citation needed] With Glaister's Meteoriods and Devine's Firebirds, Langdell was able to gain the first mainstream retail presence for computer games in Britain by convincing the British retailer, W H Smith, to start stocking games.[citation needed] As a result, Softek went from selling hundreds of its games via mail order and small, independent computer stores to selling games in the tens of thousands.[citation needed]
In 1982[7] Langdell was asked to write The Spectrum Handbook[8] which became the top selling home computer book of the time, reaching number five in the London Times bestseller list, one spot below Jane Fonda's Workout.[citation needed] Langdell was given just 72 hours to write his first book, and reputedly did not sleep until he completed the book slightly ahead of the deadline he'd been given.[citation needed] Langdell went on to write a series of books on home computers and game programming in the early 1980s (35 Programmes for the Dragon 32,[9] and The Oric Handbook) all for Century Publishing in conjunction with the British computer magazine, Personal Computer World.[citation needed]
In the early 1980s, Langdell was involved in the design of a number of home computers.[citation needed] He started working with Clive Sinclair of Sinclair Research around the time of the Sinclair Spectrum, and then worked on the sequel home computer (code-named "Loki") which was eventually scrapped. Langdell also worked on the hardware and firmware design of the Oric computer, the Dragon 32, the SAM Coupé, the Enterprise (computer) and Commodore International's CDTV.[citation needed]
In 1983, Langdell along with industry colleagues Rod Cousens of Quicksilva and Nick Alexander of Virgin Games, formed The Guild of Software Houses, a trade body representing entertainment software publishers.[citation needed] Langdell acted as Chairman of the Guild for most of the 1980s until it was eventually replaced by the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) which Langdell helped form in 1989.[citation needed]
Langdell also formed a joint venture in 1986 with Ariolasoft which Langdell named United Software, whereby EDGE took over the day to day running of the then troubled Ariola Records/BMG owned UK company, and thereby taking over the publishing of Electronic Arts and Broderbund games in Europe, as well as becoming the European distributor of the Sega Master System.[citation needed] The joint venture turned Ariolasoft around from a loss to a profit, but despite the success of the joint venture BMG decided to close down Ariolasoft.[citation needed]
Also in this period 1984-1986 Langdell helped form Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) and joined its Board of Directors.[citation needed] As a Director of F.A.S.T. he assisted in lobbying the British Government with the result that British law was changed in 1986 to include computer software in the copyright law along side printed works whereas previously software had not been covered.[citation needed]
1990 saw Commodore International fund Langdell and his company EDGE to move its headquarters from its home of the prior decade in Covent Garden London to Los Angeles so that Langdell could be more closely involved in the launch of the Commodore CDTV set-top box system.[citation needed]
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1990 to present
Once in Los Angeles, Langdell immediately became more involved in the broader entertainment industry (film, television and music).[citation needed] In 1992 Langdell became an Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern California's USC Film School where he instigated some of the first ever university courses in interactive media.[citation needed] The courses Langdell designed at USC later became the foundation for USC Film School's Masters in Interactive Media which received funding from Electronic Arts.[citation needed]
Langdell wanted to build a more established image for the game industry (which at that time was not covered in the educational system and had no televised awards show unlike the film, television and music industries). Along with colleague Andrew Zucker, in 1992 Langdell co-founded the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences[1] which with Langdell's assistance was built into an organization with around 500 members and a sizable board of advisors. Langdell is a member of the Founding Board of Governors of AIAS.[citation needed]
In 1994 Langdell wanted to have the Academy screen the first ever televised game awards show, and with Zucker was instrumental in creating and producing Cybermania which ran on TBS in 1994 and took place at Universal Studios. The show was co-hosted by Leslie Nielsen and Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Langdell chaired the Academy Awards Committee for this ever televised games award show and was instrumental in helping design the AIAS logo and award "statuette" (both of which are still in use by the current Academy). [10] Langdell remains an active member of AIAS.[citation needed]
In 1993 Langdell also decided to diversify EDGE well beyond just computer and video game software publishing into print and other entertainment media. As a result Langdell worked with Future Publishing to license the rights to the trademark EDGE to launch a new high-end games magazine, Edge, which was published by Future under license from EDGE starting in 1993.[citation needed] Langdell also took EDGE into comic book publishing and in 1995 worked with Gil Kane to license the trademark EDGE for a series of comic books published by Malibu Comics.[citation needed] They featured a super hero called EDGE. Langdell also brokered a movie deal, too, licensing the trademark rights to 20th Century Fox for The Edge which stared Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin.[citation needed] Langdell further diversified EDGE into selling game computers bearing the EDGE and GAMER'S EDGE names, as well as entertainment centers named EDGE, and ranges of clothing, sunglasses.[citation needed]
Langdell then further diversified his personal involvement by starting music publishing using the EDGE and THE EDGE brands and also establishing EDGE Studios as an early website design and development studios in 1995.[citation needed] Langdell also sought to expand EDGE's game publishing activities beyond computer and video game console games into the burgeoning interactive movie market by his involvement with Bob Gale on one of the first interactive movies, Mr Payback. Langdell's responsibility under and agreement with Sony Pictures was to produce CD-ROM and DVD versions of the theatrical release which ran using laserdiscs.[citation needed]
In the mid 1990s Langdell continued his book publishing activities by writing Virtual Reality Beyond Imagination.[11] He followed this by co-authoring the first book on game testing in 2005, Game Testing All In One,[12] and co-editing and contributing a chapter to Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames in 2006.
In the late 1990s Langdell, in a brief excursion away from his central career in entertainment, was recruited to take on the role of COO of Altamira Group which with Langdell's assistance produced the award winning Genuine Fractals Photoshop plug-in.[citation needed] In 1997, Genuine Fractals won a MacWorld Eddy.[13] It was notable also because Genuine Fractals was the first product developed on PC and ported to Mac to win an EDDY.[citation needed] Genuine Fractals is still an industry standard for professional image resizing and is used by graphics professionals worldwide.[citation needed]
Having taught games and interactive media at the USC Film School from 1992, Langdell helped launch a range of interactive media and multimedia/web design classes at the UCLA Extension on Universal City Walk.[citation needed] Langdell then returned to USC in 2003, this time to teach in the School of Engineering where he devised numerous game courses in game development, game design, game testing and game company management.[citation needed] Langdell was instrumental in building the USC School of Engineering game classes from around 20 students in 2003 to more than 700 students who had taken classes taught or devised by Langdell by 2006.[citation needed] In the summer of 2006 Langdell was appointed Chair of the Department of Media at National University, a position he holds concurrent with running EDGE. At National Langdell supervises programs in Digital Cinema, Screenwriting, Interactive Media, and Educational Technology as well as being lead faculty of the MFA in Videogame Production and Design which he devised in 2006 and launched in 2008. [14]
Langdell's involvement in the film and television industries, and his work to encourage the convergence of these industries with the game industry, increased over the 2000 to 2008 period: Langdell joined the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (London and Los Angeles branches) and was appointed to the Board of Directors of BAFTA/LA in 2002-2003. [15] Langdell is also a member of the Television Academy (ATAS/Emmys), a member of the Writers Guild of America (since 2005 he has served as Vice Chair of the WGA New Media Caucus, now renamed the Videogame Writers Caucus), a member of the television, radio and video game actors guild AFTRA and the Producers Guild of America (where Langdell currently serves on the Board of the PGA New Media Council).[citation needed] Langdell remains active in game industry bodies, being an active member of the IGDA (he ran for the IGDA Board of Directors in 2008 and is on the Steering Committee of the Game Writers SIG) and AIAS. [16] He is also the founder and Chairman of the British Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences founded in 2005.[citation needed]
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Game credits
Langdell has been lead producer, designer and writer on all of EDGE's more than 180 games since 1979, as well as assisting with the coding of most of the games he designed. [17]. Among the games Langdell is best known for are:
Fairlight (1985)
Brian Bloodaxe (1985)
Garfield: Big Fat Hairy Deal (1987)
Snoopy: The Case of the Missing Blanket (1992)
He also helped with God of War (2005)[18] and World of Warcraft (2004) (for which Langdell arranged numerous of his USC students to test the game prior to retail launch and two of his students joined the WoW development team at Blizzard Entertainment).[19] Langdell worked on many other games over the 1979 to 2008 period, including EDGE's range of games based on Marvel Comics characters and is currently working on games for the Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms, as well as several mobile and PC-based MMORPGs.[citation needed]
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References
^ a b New game in town: Langdell Brown from AllBusiness.com
^ Langdell, Tim. Face Perception: An Approach to the Study of Autism. (ASIN B001AJDMOQ)
^ National University: Media Department Faculty from NU.edu
^ EDGE Games: Corporate Information from EDGEGAMES.COM
^ Buffer Micro Shop by Andrew Glaister at Andrew Glaister
^ Review of Sord (December 1992) by Tim Langdell at Your Computer (British magazine)
^ Tim Langdell at World of Spectrum
^ Langdell, Tim (1982-11-11). Spectrum Handbook. Century. ISBN 071260152X.
^ Langdell, Tim (March 1983). 35 Programmes for the Dragon 32. Century. ISBN 0712601732.
^ Annual DICE Awards from D.I.C.E. Summit
^ Langdell, Tim (January 1995). Virtual Reality Beyond Imagination. Sams Publishing. ISBN 0672304589.
^ Langdell, Tim (2005-02-21). Game Testing All In One. Course Technology PTR. ISBN 978-1592003730.
^ MacWorld 1997 EDDY winners, Genuine Fractals wins Best Graphics Plug-in
^ MFA in Videogame Production on Nu.Edu
^ BAFTA/LA Archive on EiNet
^ IDGA Writers SIG Board Members
^ Tim Langdell at MobyGames
^ God of War PS2 credits at MobyGames
^ Gameplan from USC Trojan Family Magazine
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Categories: 1953 births | Living people | Video game programmers | ZX Spectrum programmers | Video game industry | People from Oxfordshire | Expert witnesses | University of Southern California faculty | Alumni of the University of Leicester | Academics of the Open University
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